Aurelia Creed
Aurelia Creed is one of the Imperium's oldest and best-known naval strategists. She is known mainly for her advocacy of a carrier-based navy, as opposed to the traditional Sidh naval doctrine which has historically prioritized battleships and battle-carriers. Background Aurelia is one of those few living Sidhae old enough to have the Emperor in living memory. Furthermore, as a born New Aedunite, she has in fact met the Allfather personally on at least two occasions - one during her naval academy graduation ceremony, when the Emperor would personally hand the young cadet her certificate and officer's epaulets, and another when the Emperor would personally promote her to command one of His warships. Both of these facts which are documented and verifiable have in themselves elevated Aurelia Creed's reputation to semi-legendary status, let alone her actual accomplishments as one of the Imperium's best naval commanders. Her origins are much more humble than her current reputation would suggest, however. In her early youth, Aurelia showed no particular aptitude for strategy or indeed any military gifts at all, only being accepted in the New Aedun Naval Academy because of a last-minute drop-out. The young woman might not have been very talented, but she more than made up for her lack of innate gifts with an impeccable, borderline-obsessive work ethic, refusing to socialize with her peers in order to study. Her hard work eventually paid off when Aurelia graduated as the first in her class. As was the custom, the Emperor himself would hand New Aedun naval academy graduates their diplomas and officers' epaulets, an honour already deemed tremendous back in the day. The other time she personally met the Emperor was years later, upon receiving her first command, a modest frigate called ''Lance of Jove, ''when the Emperor would personally grant first commands to worthy young naval officers stationed on and near New Aedun. The said frigate met it's end during the Siege of New Aedun in the early days of the Sidh Civil War. Aurelia barely survived the loss of her ship, but distinguished herself by taking out two Traitor frigates, two destroyers and seriously crippling a heavy cruiser. She would spend the following years in service of the Loyalist navy, rapidly rising through the ranks if only because of a constant shortage of ranking officers who were constantly being killed in action. While Aurelia wasn't a very imaginative or innovative tactician, she did prove herself to be a complete master of established naval doctrines and tactics, having an uncanny ability to find textbook cases a real-life application under almost any circumstances. In her understanding, naval warfare was all about mathematics, things like statistical probability, and whoever mastered them best would also be able to make the best use of them. That her beliefs held some validity was attested by the fact that she had gained the rank of Rear Admiral by the time of the Battle of Kentares, where Traitors were decisively crushed by Loyalists. In the following years, Aurelia would lead a series of increasingly hopeless and frustrating battles, their only purpose being to minimize loss of face rather than casualties. When the Second Pilgrimage commenced, she was tasked to lead the vanguard explorator fleets as one of the few surviving pre-Age of War naval officers with some experience in civil space exploration. Aurelia would firmly establish herself as a fleet admiral in the following two centuries, waging colonial wars against minor xenos species and crushing insurgencies within her district of responsibility. Her chance for true glory came two centuries later, with the commencement of the Reconquest War. Holding the rank of Grand Admiral and command of several entire battlefleets, Aurelia was in charge of naval operations spanning several sectors. It was during this time that Aurelia came to advocate a carrier-based navy similar to that of the Federation of Mankind. In her opinion, hybrid warships like the dreadnoughts tried to combine two distinct roles while excelling in neither, while building highly-specialized capital ships would cost a fraction of the budget allocated for the dreadnoughts. Despite being unpopular with more traditionalist naval officers and planners, Aurelia had sufficient reputation to receive an audience with the Empress herself and be given a generous grant to experiment with her ideas. Aurelia Creed would not let her generous sponsor down, proving the viability of a carrier-based battlefleet during the Second Battle of Halgha Moons, when the sole experimental carrier built as part of the experiment performed excellently against the Skargh along with its battlegroup. Humans were likewise accustomed to Sidhae using battleships and battle-carriers as the backbone of their fleets, and consequently proved equally shocked and surprised. Impressed with her combat record, the Empress would personally sanction the development of a dedicated class of supercarriers to match and exceed those of the Federation, resulting in the current Odin-class. In the present day, Aurelia Creed holds supreme naval command over the entire Aquila Reach sector, personally presiding over 26th Battlefleet with supercarrier Hel at it's core. Personality Aurelia Creed makes a point in knowing everything there is to know about her ships. Her intimate knowledge with even the humblest positions on her ships has on many occasions contributed to her supreme performance. Unlike many other naval officers of her rank and standing, however, she despises politics and politicians, only craving to be back to leading her men on the battlefield sooner - a trait that even enemies have come to respect. Although having friends is a luxury that ranking Imperial officers can rarely afford, the closest thing to friends that Aurelia has are two fellow strategic geniuses, Archistrategos Arcadius Drax and Grand Admiral Mercred Kanto, alongside whom Aurelia would mastermind many of the Reconquest Wars' campaigns. Aurelia makes a point of maintaining at least an outwardly civil manner at all times. She will most definitely not be impressed by crude and churlish manners or the use of crude language. A peculiar quirk of hers in this respect is her intense dislike for using contractions in speech, to the point where she's known to interrupt speakers that do use them in her presence and demand that they use language properly or not speak at all - in Aurelia's opinion, diminishing the beauty of Sidh language by butchering it with contractions and jargonisms is boorish and un-Sidh, perhaps suitable for an uncouth Frontier colony yokel but certainly not an officer of the Imperial Navy, or for that matter any proper well-mannered Sidh. This is often a point of contention between her and her friend Drax, who is rather infamous for his blunt, straightforward manners and habitual swearing. While her conservative attitudes may label her as old-fashioned, Aurelia takes pride in maintaining a stirling personal decorum and reputation, equating it to that of her unit and consequently treating disciplinary infractions harshly as well. In her own words, "laxity in personal life leads to laxity in service". While being a strict and by-the-book commander, Aurelia is however far from being a martinet, striving to lead her subordinates first and foremost with personal example. She allows her no excess in anything and only the bare minimum of comforts, striving to live by the Word to the letter, for only someone who embodies the very best of Sidh virtues is worthy to call oneself an Imperial Navy officer and a true Sidh, and demands her officers to do the same. The only luxury that Aurelia is known to indulge in is the fine arts. Extremely well-read and well-versed in Old Terran classics, she keeps an impressive library of printed books aboard her command ship, the Hel, and is generally known for her patronage of art, literature and music. In her opinion, every Sidh officer should refine himself by endeavoring to study the Terran classics. Owing to her patronage, the Symphonic Orchestra of 26th Battlefleet is the pride of the Imperial Navy, joining together the very best musical talents to be found within Aurelia's realm of command.